I am starting to see more books being published in Lean that are not just about applying Lean to services or customer facing problems. Instead, they are starting to address that deeper understanding between Lean and Customer Involvement. We seem to be at a crossroads that Lean is moving into the consumption and demand side of the value stream. The first inroads were made by Womack and Jones in Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together. In another podcast with Dan Jones(The Future of Lean with Dan Jones) , we discussed the reason for this.

‘80% of Companies believe they deliver a Superior Service, only 8% of Customers agree.’

- Bain and Companies

Lean Service Design Trilogy: Closing the Gaps between Perception and Reality: Preview the program

Lean Marketing Lab

You can't write and teach Lean Sales and Marketing. It is a Learn by doing approach. It is choose one problem and solve one problem. What we can do is provide you a platform through the recommended books and tools, teach them and incorporate feedback as you put them into practice.

Being part of this community will allow you to interact with like minded individuals and organizations, purchase related tools, use some free ones and receive feedback from your peers.

What makes Lean Sales and Marketing different is the system. The steps of Lean S & M are first you go and see the initial practice, the user. Second, you form a working vision from the user experience, an ideal situation of where the user wants to go. Third, you visualize the user's process. If you do that, it's obvious to see what your next reaction should be and when to trigger it.

We introduce the tools into the process very early through the books, PDFs and Word and Excel documents. It is a form of self-study and exercises to understand your processes better. They are a way to look at problems, not solve problems. Many people buy the latest software, the latest book or even the latest methodology to implement some sort of solution thinking it will make them better. What makes you better is using the tool rigorously, so you understand your problems and your own processes and then with hard work, take the time to figure out how to solve your problems. It's this process, that empowers you and which leads you to create better and more performing processes.

Lean is a journey. As my friend Dr. Michael Balle says, “Lean is not a revolution; it is solve one thing and prove one thing.” I look forward to your participation in the Lean Marketing Lab! - Joe Dager, Business901.